# African Geography: What's Up With Equatorial Guinea?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/african-geography-whats-up-with-equatorial-guinea/547564>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 22, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/african-geography-whats-up-with-equatorial-guinea/547564 "2010-07-22T04:21:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2010, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/african-geography-whats-up-with-equatorial-guinea/547564/21 "2010-07-23T23:04:37Z")

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> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> I just wonder why they ceded the outer two islands and kept the central two ones.

My semi-educated guess is that it had to do with the fact that Bioko was the only one of those islands that had had a pre-existing indigenous population. One that at the time of that land transfer, still controlled the island’s interior. So it was undoubtedly the most disposable - the Portuguese had full control of the other islands and while Sao Tome had been a slave and sugar entrepot, Bioko was likely more of a headache than a revenue generator at that point.

Why Annobo is a harder question. Presumably it was just part of the bargaining and as was certainly less developed than Sao Tome and perhaps Principe and thus woth surrendering. In the case of Annobo, it is interesting that a Portuguese creole is still the most commonly spoken language and the inhabitants were apparently not happy about being to being transferred to Spain.

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**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2010, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/african-geography-whats-up-with-equatorial-guinea/547564/22 "2010-07-25T12:57:05Z")

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People have tried to mess with Equatorial Guinea. Neighboring countries don’t have the interests or resources to attack them, but the lure of all that oil is strong. In 2004 a group of mercenaries with largely British financing attempted to stage a coup. They bungled it all pretty badly, and ended up arrested in Zimbabwe. It received a lot of media attention because Margaret Thatcher’s grandson was tied to it.

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